Basketball Wives L.A. – Episode 9 – Keep Your Enemies Close

When we last saw Jackie, she had just greeted her two daughters, Chantel and Takari, into her Seattle home after some time apart and what I’m going to call an estrangement. The fact is, they weren’t speaking much. Doug had the good sense to take Dougie Jr. and spend the day far away from this storm that’s brewing, because Jackie had also welcomed a relationship therapist to the house despite the fact that her “daughters made it clear: NO counselors!”
And yet, because she is Jackie, she invited Beth the counselor to see how they would respond. Takari takes the lead and explains that she’s never felt good enough for her mother and has spent her life feeling intimidated by her. Jackie soothes her, but when Chantel tells Jackie she was always preoccupied with making sure they had more than Jackie did as a kid at the cost of never spending time with her, that’s where Jackie’s feathers started to get ruffled. “There was food in the house, heat in the house, Grandma’s down the hall. That sounds like a damn good mother to me…I don’t wanna be sitting here listening to some nonsense.”
Chantel also tells Jackie that she’s not real and genuine all the time which hits another nerve. “Why are you making these lies up?” Jackie asks. “That hurts me.”

“This is the problem,” Chantel says. “She’s willing to apologize, but she’s not acknowledging what it is we’re saying to her.” Jackie starts to get angry with Chantel and refuses to go back and nitpick through details of their lives and the ways she might have hurt her girls and suggests they all just start to get over it, when Takari tells her “It’s probably better for you to know now, I will never get over this.”
The therapist tells them that their problems can’t be solved in a day, so the girls leave angry that Jackie didn’t truly hear them, and Jackie is angry at what she thinks are a bunch of lies they spewed. Chantel and Takari meet Doug in the driveway and he tells them, “Listen, she loves you guys more than anything, and sometimes it’s f—ed up how it comes across.” Doug’s words mean little to Chantel who tells him “I’m over this.”

If only Chani could replace Jackie on the show, then I bet everyone would get along and there’d be no fights.

While Brooke waits for Gloria to show up to lunch in L.A., she notices on her Twitter feed that Gloria’s beau, Matt, has been arrested for a traffic violation.
Gloria calls to tell her she can’t make it and that she’s dealing with all the legal repercussions that followed the arrest. The next day, she meets Draya and Brooke, since all three of them have decided to skip the trip to Seattle, to explain the story. She tells them that while they were walking to their car from dinner, one particular cop who “has it our for Matt” approached them and when Matt went to hand Gloria the car keys, the cop grabbed Matt who pulled away. Hence, he was taken in for resisting arrest, and from there, rumors that he was drunk, belligerent and violent started popping up. Gloria supports Matt but the situation adds to her confusion about their future now that he’s a free agent and they’re trying to figure out where to live and who he’ll play for on top of all this drama.
Over at Storage Wars: Seattle, Jackie brings her new assistant, Shawn, in to help her go through all the things she accumulated back when she had the idea to purchase a ton of stuff at wholesale and resell it online for retail prices. She ran out of time to make that business happen, so now it’s time to sift through it all and get rid of it.
The rest of the ladies (Laura, Malaysia, and Bambi) head to Seattle for their weekend with Jackie, who couldn’t be more excited to host them. They are all ready for a pajama party, Doug has cooked for them, they’re ready to gossip, and they get it started with Jackie talking all about the drama with her daughters. It’s not Laura’s favorite convo.

Jackie starts explaining how her daughters were ungrateful for being brought up wit “too much” stuff, and that in one instance, Takari even took a butcher knife and threatened to cut Jackie up. “You’re the devil,” Laura says after she hears that story. “That s— she’s talking about, I’m sure it didn’t happen like that. I mean, I couldn’t even imagine myself being her daughter.” Which is why Laura decides that she wants to meet with Jackie’s daughters to compare stories and get some information from them. “They have the core to exactly who she is,” Laura says.
Bambi is suspicious of Laura’s motives and doesn’t like this scenario one bit, but Jackie agrees, as long as it will help. And then Laura reveals that the reason she’s qualified to talk to the girls is because she’s able to be neutral because she herself was molested as a kid, and that’s given her the “testimony” to be able to talk to other people. I still don’t totally understand the logic, but it has something to do with not putting blame on people? Or something? But then she turns around and explains “These right here are games. She’s so insecure that she’s starting to listen to the things that I’m saying and actually take them in, it’s almost like you’re just being mind-f—ed.” So…then the molestation thing is just a ruse? A trick? A way to use Jackie? Am I hearing this right?

“If Laura messes with my children…I’m going for her,” Jackie says.
“Ever since I kissed Bambi, everyone wants to be all up in my lesbian business now,” Draya says, and this week the theme continues as she brings Brooke to her first lesbian bar. The reason she chose Brooke and not the other girls for this lesbian outing is because Gloria and Malaysia are “scary” and with Bambi, well, “it’s a mixed crowd.” So.
Draya leaves Brooke for one second and all of a sudden, the lesbians of L.A. swarm her. “Next thing I know, the whole table is surrounded with girls,” Brooke says. Even though the other women know Brooke is straight, they continue to shower her and Draya with attention all night.
Jackie’s definitely getting an odd vibe from Laura after their pajama party conversation, so she pulls Bambi aside to ask what her opinion on Laura is during a day out in Seattle. Bambi tells Jackie “I think y’all’s s— is weird.”
Bambi tells Jackie she’s too passive around Laura and Jackie seems surprised. “It’s like Jackie hears me,” Bambi says. “But then she’s gonna do what she wants to do anyway.” Bambi then heads over to Laura to see what her side of things is, and Laura explains that Bambi will find out in due time, but that whatever is going on has been a long time coming.
If this entire season has been one long prank by Laura, I will be impressed. That’s definitely how it’s shaping up.

Brooke and Draya are still on their own in L.A. so they hit the boxing ring for a lesson with Victor Ortiz. Did I say boxing lesson? I meant shameless flirt session. No one was very subtle about any of it, with Draya asking him to pull her shorts down, telling him to take off his shirt, and everyone gawking at his rippling body.
But Draya wants to keep up the boxing, and not just to keep seeing Victor. “I have to get good, because I have people to punch,” she explains.

Jackie, Malaysia, and Bambi are all back in L.A. now, and the whole Laura thing still isn’t sitting well with Bambi.
Bam knows too much about Laura’s plans, and she needs to let Jackie in on them. First, she comes out with the conversation about “What if Jackie died?” and how Laura responded to that. “She was like ‘I don’t care’! She don’t give a f—,” Bam tells Jackie. “That’s some fierce s— right there,” Jackie responds. Malaysia tries to defend Laura because after all their drama from last season, they’re in a good place, but knowing Bambi as long as she has, she takes her points into consideration. Malaysia wants to find out for herself what Laura’s intentions really are with Jackie.
Jackie confronts Laura first and asks her about the way Laura responded to the “What if Jackie died?” question, and Laura technically admits that she did say she wouldn’t care, but explains that it was all about context.
(The context being…they were trying on maid of honor dresses for Jackie’s wedding while that conversation went down.) Laura deftly turns the tables and asks who told her that, and when she hears that it was Bambi, Laura tells Jackie “Bambi’s your new boo? ‘Cause you got her fired up, she’s ride or die for Jackie.” And Jackie’s response?? “Awwww!”
Laura starts to explain (to us) her game plan all along has been to get back at Jackie for last season when she played her and tricked her into thinking all the girls were against her and payback is a b—h. “You’re gonna feel how I felt in every aspect,” she says. “I’ma get you, b—h.”
But when Jackie asks her to her face if they’re actual friends, or of they have no relationship, Laura lies flatly and says “We’re fine.” She’s not about to play her hand just yet. However, when Malaysia confronts her and tells her “You wanna keep insulting her and f—ing with her, what’s up with that?” Laura just grins, and Malaysia starts to take the side that she’s being a bully after all. “Sometimes she takes things too far.”
“I wouldn’t call it bullying,” Laura defends herself. “I would call it ‘back atcha.'”

“I’ma do you like you did me,” Laura continues. “You’re gonna feel all the pain that I felt.”

“It serves you no purpose, but you’re doing it anyway,” Malaysia tries to reason. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s what I do,” Laura replies.